"The laws of Nature [seem] perpetually subject to challenge by the scientific court of appeal." --Alan Dean Foster

General Wye, Graham and Deborah spent breakfast of the followingday comparing notes on the previous evening. The General - nowrenamed 'Dictator' - reported his pillow talk with the USambassador, to the interest of Graham and the slight disapprovalof Deborah. "Absolaam, I'm not sure it was wise to let the Americans knowour plans quite so soon." "Perhaps not, Deborah," said the Dictator, chastened, "But thedamage - if damage there is - is done now, so it's best to bearit in mind in the future. In any case," he smiled, playfully, "Ithink it was worth it - and it might be a good idea to let themthink that those are our entire objectives - after all, I didn'tmention the extent of the new Network, or our aims regardingorganised religion." "Or the research goals, eh, General?" added Graham. "Exactly," agreed Wye, "These long-term philosophical goalsmight cause them to delay taking notice of the short-termscientific goals for just long enough to let us get away withpoaching their best minds. What's left of them, that is," headded, ruefully. Graham and Deborah agreed, with some reservations from Deborah,before she said, "Now to our own evening. "On the way down, Graham and I came up with two rumours which weeach spread, surreptitiously, at the Knees-up," she smiled at theirony of the name they'd applied to the previous evening's ratherstilted event. "The first," she went on, "Which I spread, was to do withbacteriological weapons. The story I spread was that I'd heardtales from the highest levels of the Dictator's new advisors thatnuclear weaponry was to be dismantled." "True enough - when we have the time to do so, and find a use toput them to," agreed Wye. "Hmmm," she agreed, though less than wholeheartedly, "But thesame tales also mentioned bacteriological weapons which would beused, in place of a nuclear strike. So, an attack on Britainwould result in retaliation by germ warfare," thinking back, sheadded, "The responses were quite promising - I don't thinkanybody would risk that kind of retaliation." "Wise idea, Deborah - and what was your story, Graham?" "Mine was a little more subtle, Genera...Dictator," Grahamgrinned, "By the way, your new title went down very well - thoseambassadors were quite bowled over by it." Deborah nodded her agreement, "Yes - it made spreading tales ofyour ruthlessness far easier. Of course, the broadcast of the'massacre' helped a lot in that as well." Wye was grinning like an idiot by now, as he said, "Thank you -it just came to me in a flash when I walked into the hall." Then,seriously, he added, "I like the title, though, it's got just theright touch of irony to it. Do you think I should keep it?" "Oh, undoubtedly," replied Graham. "Yes, not that you've got much choice in the matter by now,"Deborah added, "In the newspapers - and on the TV and radio -they were all calling you 'Dictator of the British Isles' thismorning," she grinned, "But you're right in any case - it's agood title. "In fact," she went on, "It might be a good idea to re-title allgovernment positions in the same fashion." "How do you mean?" "Well - have you both read Swift's Gulliver's Travels?" Theynodded, so she continued, "Well, on the island of Laputa noofficial ever spoke or listened to anybody else unless theirservants - called 'flappers' - flapped their lips or ears with abladder. The servants would do this whenever it was important intheir opinion that their master listened or spoke to that person. "The Laputan system, for obvious reasons, is very like thebureaucratic system of hierarchies between the 'common folk' andthe higher levels of government and the civil service." "So, you're suggesting," Graham asked his wife, "That we re-namecivil servants 'flappers,' the better to describe their actions?" "Exactly - each civil servant has, as her primary purpose,'flapping' at the ears and lips of her superior, who has the samepurpose until the lips and ears of the head of the government arereached. "The only difference between Laputa and the civil service isthat on Laputa flappers ignored those who they didn't think wereimportant enough to bother their masters with, while in the civilservice they will either deal with them under the rigid set ofrules sent down from on high by their masters, or send a memoabout them." "An admirable concept, Deborah," the Dictator announced,pressing the intercom button on the table. The Cabinet Secretaryanswered almost at once - so quickly, in fact, that Wye almostchoked on the piece of fried tomato he was trying to quicklyswallow. "Yes, Dictator?" came the muffled voice. "Ah, Cabinet Secretary," Wye began, "Tell me, what is the lowestgrade in the civil service?" He was told, so he went on, "As ofthis moment, the job title of that position is to be designated'First Flapper.' The title of the grade immediately above is tobe 'Second Flapper,' and so on, up to and including the PermanentSecretaries." "Might I ask why, Dic..." the muffled voice began, then -thinking better of questioning Wye again - meekly answered, "Verywell, Dictator." "Good, good," Wye answered. Then, almost as an afterthought,"Oh, and the position of Cabinet Secretary is - of course - onegrade higher than that of Permanent Secretary. So what would yournew title be?" After a bare moment's thought, the ex-Cabinet Secretaryanswered, "Fifty-ninth Flapper, Sir." Wye whistled in astonishment - he hadn't realised that therewere so many layers - before telling the 59th Flapper to informall civil servants of their new job title, and switching off theintercom. "I don't think he was happy about that, Absolaam," said Deborah,after a moment's pause. "I'd agree, Deborah. I think," Wye almost choked on a crisppiece of bacon as he added, "I think that he - too - has readGulliver's Travels." The Three laughed together - Deborah's high, tinkling laughmixing with her husband's low baritone and Wye's half-choking.For a few seconds, sounds of mirth echoed around the Cabinet Roombefore Wye turned to Graham, "You were about to tell me the storyyou spread last night, before we got sidetracked..." he said,expectantly. "Yes?" he re-gained his train of thought, "Ah, yes. So I was. AsI was saying, my story was rather more subtle than Deborah's germwarfare one. "I spread a rumour that the Dictator's," he nodded in Wye'sdirection, "First action had been to add a ninja-like section tothe British Army, and had dispersed it to various countriesaround the world. The aim of the new section was to assassinateany leaders and underlings who decided to attack the BritishIsles. "I'll tell you - the thought of their own necks in the noose andthose diplomats...well, you could almost see them take a pledgeto fight any aggression against this country," he laughed again,low and booming. Wye himself thought for a moment before saying, "You know,that's not a bad idea, though." At the Greenes' questioningexpressions, he elaborated further, "I mean, making warfarepersonal again. "In modern wars, the politicians and generals make theirdecisions from miles behind the front line - in most cases,thousands of miles. They are then quite willing to send tens ofthousands of soldiers, often conscripted, into battle to win ordie. "Yet look at how we took over this country. Instead of sendingour army - which we don't have, but even so - instead of fightingthe previous leader's army, we threatened him, personally - wethreatened his own life, and those of his close supporters. "If that can work here, then why not set up an assassinationsquad and let it be known that aggression by another countryagainst Britain will be met, not only by our army fightingtheirs, but also by the individuals responsible for theaggression - the other country's leaders - losing their lives?" "A good idea, Absolaam," Deborah agreed, "And, yes, thefoundation of our success in this country. But even so," shepaused a moment, "Such assassinations would be immenselydifficult to organise - and what of the possibility of even onesuch team turning on us?" "Good point, and one which I hadn't considered," Wye agreed,"But the idea - as you say - is sound..." He paused, again, inthough, "How about if we set up these groups as a replacement forthe army just before we abdicate power? And, in the meantime,keep both yours and Graham's rumours alive?" The three agreed on this as the best course of action beforeturning to talk about the large meeting that Deborah and theDictator had planned for that afternoon.

*****

"Settle down, please, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you," Grahambegan. The people he was talking to consisted of a large group ofscientists, the top people in the country in each of the keyareas which were initially to be funded by their group. To the far right of the Cabinet Room's table sat MichaelBanting, the materials scientist who had taken part in the designof the Network the previous afternoon, looking gleeful at theprospect of the coming discussion. To Banting's left was Colin Simoney, the leading particlephysicist in the country, trying, by means of a sobercountenance, to give the lie to his mop of frizzy, dark brownhair. Beside Simoney sat Margaret Brinden, head of artificialintelligence research at Edinburgh University, her slender figurewrapped - and almost lost - in a baggy, tent-like, red dress. To her left was Daniel Petri, aeronautics specialist and one-time consultant to NASA, while to Daniel's other side satHenrietta Harshaw, the country's leading geneticist. The remainder of the group contained representatives from otherbranches of the sciences: organic and inorganic chemists, solid-state physicists, biologists, climatologists, and so on. Each ofa dozen fields was represented by at least two scientists, chosenlargely because their opinions differed one from the other. Hencethe noise level in the room when Graham spoke. Once the room had quietened down somewhat, Graham took his placebeside Wye, on the other side from his wife, to face the group ofscientists, who looked, variously, either attentive or bored -largely depending on the number of government meetings they hadpreviously attended. Wye spoke first: "Today," he began, "We are going to make someinitial decisions about which areas of scientific research are tobe funded over the course of the next few years. "All comments and suggestions will be welcome," he went on,waving his hands downwards in at attempt to quell the uproar,"But, first, Mrs Greene will outline the practical results wewill be initially aiming for. Deborah?" he indicated her with hisleft hand. "Thank you, Dictator. As you know," she addressed thescientists, "The previous government is no more," unexpectedcheers came from the group of scientists, "As you may have heard,our policy is to invest in scientific research, both pure andapplied, in many directions." She paused, before adding, "Money is not - for now, at least -an issue." Deborah waited a moment for her last statement to sink in. Thescientists looked awe-struck for a moment, then one - a man inhis mid-thirties, Deborah estimated, wearing a sports jacket witha tie that looked like it had seen better days - stood up. "Professor Colin Simoney, particle physics," he introducedhimself, "When you say that money isn't an issue, what exactly doyou mean?" "Exactly what I say, Mister Simoney," began Deborah. "That's 'Professor' Simoney," he interrupted, with a pompousair. "No formality here, please, people," Wye exclaimed, "We'll leavetitles outside the door at these meeting. Go on, Deborah," hegestured in her direction, ignoring the apoplectic look onSimoney's face. "Thank you, Absolaam," continued Deborah, omitting the title andemphasising the omission, "As I was saying...Well, give me anexample from your own field, Colin," she asked Simoney. "Something expensive? Hmmm...There's a particular configurationof particle accelerator that I've been wishing to have built forquite a few years now, but nothing like it exists yet - thatwould set you back close to eight hundred million pounds per yearfor the decade it would take to build it. Do you have eightbillion pounds you would be willing to spend?" "A very good example, Colin," Deborah went on, "How much wouldit cost to build it within a year?" "Probably even more - say nine and a half to ten billionpounds." "Call it ten billion - now, could you explain why you'd wantit?" "In layman's terms? Not really. It's needed to check a smallprediction of my own theory against observation. I'd want to seewhat happens when..." With a faraway look in his eyes, Simoneylaunched into a rather technical speech, finishing with, "...and,if my theory proves to be correct then neutrinos, under theseconditions, are travelling in excess of the speed of light. "Since - according to Cowsik and McLelland's arguments - aneutrino has mass, then my theory seems to be in directcontradiction to Einstein's Relativity theory," he concluded,"But, of course, there's no way to test it out," he finished,glumly. "I thought that you said it could be tested using the device youasked us to have built," Deborah said to him, questioningly. "Well, yes, but that wa..." "Okay - you can have your accelerator, we'll sort out thedetails after this meeting, okay?" Simoney sat down, thunderstruck, the wind taken right out of hissails. As he was seating himself, he heard Michael Banting'svoice say, quietly, "I told you all - yesterday afternoon, thesethree people calmly committed two hundred billion pounds to theconstruction of the largest single computing network ever built.They're not going to quibble about a few hundred billion spent onworthwhile research." On hearing this, Deborah turned to Banting, "Thank you, Michael.But, you know, that's not entirely true. Before we authorise asingle penny to be spent on any project, I will want to know whythe money should be spent in that way, and some idea of theimplications of the project, if any. "If you don't know what the implications might be, then say so.In some ways, we could be more interested in that kind ofexperiment than in some others. Hell," she said, laughing, "Wemight even invest in a scheme to extract sunbeams from cucumbersif we thought there was a chance of it working... "Even if we didn't, for that matter," she added, pensively,"After all, sometimes the craziest ideas turn out to be the mostuseful - think of how crazy helicopters must have seemed in DaVinci's time, or computers in Babbage's. "What we want to do, people, is to push back the boundaries ofboth science and technology. I'll warn you now, however, that alarge chunk of money is already earmarked for research into fivemain fields." "Which ones?" came a voice - Deborah couldn't be sure, but shethought it was the woman from Edinburgh University...Maggie...something. "Specifically," she began counting them off on her fingers, "Wewant a broad-range, room-temperature super-conductor; Secondly,we're after a nuclear fusion reactor - preferably cold fusion,but anything that can reach ignition point will be a good start;Thirdly, we're interested in developing a true artificialintelligence; fourthly, we want life extension techniques -everything from repairing cells and genetic disorders through toextending the human lifespan as far as it will go. "Finally - and, perhaps, most urgently - we want a self-supporting, independent space station to use as a base to exploreand settle the rest of this solar system. "You're going to pay for this money, of course," Deborah wenton, as a sea of eyes caught those of others in a 'ah, now hereare the strings' expression, "If you accept funding from thisgovernment, then fifty percent of all money which results fromyour research will go to the government for so long as we chooseto fund your research. "Notice that the choice to start accepting our money is yoursbut, once you've started, the choice to stop accepting it is oursalone. You can, if you like, take fifty billion pounds from us,spot a practical application and then stop taking our money andtake off to obtain private funding for the last stretch. But evenif you do that, we will still own half of the money from that,and any other, practical application. "To give an example, then: suppose Colin Simoney's experimentsresult - somewhere along the line - in a practical faster-than-light drive," Simoney started to protest, but Deborah waved himdown, "I realise how unlikely that is, Colin - just bear with me.If that happens, then the government will own half of that drive.That's our starting position, people, so let's hear your ideas." Ideas came thick and fast - after seeing the casual expenditureof ten billion pounds on Simoney's pet project, all of thescientists were eager to contribute their own. In all, one hundred billion pounds was committed to fundseventy-seven separate projects during the course of thatafternoon. Each of the five key fields was well covered, and twohundred million pounds was allocated to a number of what Deborahlater called 'crackpot' ideas, on the basis that if just one ofthose panned out then the government's coffers need never beempty again. The final list of projects included some fairly ambitious ideas.To take a few examples: Once the mechanics of the forthcoming national Network wereexplained, Sharon Kelly came up with the idea of exploiting themagnetic field around the electricity transmission network, byinstalling blocks of nitrogen-cooled superconducting material invehicles, to provide a means of levitating cars and trains. Graeme Skildon, of Cambridge University's computing department,concurred with Sharon in this, but thought that spare capacity onthe radio relays in the Network could be also be useful inautomatically navigating the same cars and trains - or groundcars, if the levitation idea didn't pan out. A small group of particle physicists and engineers had discussedDeborah's ideas of deriving a faster-than-light theory from ColinSimoney's equations. No answers yet, of course, but plenty offascinating questions, and some great ideas for furtherexperiments to try out on Colin's new accelerator - "Come back inten years time and we'll let you know if travelling faster thanlight could be practical." Fifty million pounds was to be spent on the most powerfulcomputer available to help get these three projects off theground - literally, in the case of Sharon Kelly's project. A group of neurophysicists, it turned out, had been playing withthe idea of building a huge connectionist machine. Aconnectionist machine, they explained, was a mass of simplecomputer processors all connected together in the same way thatneurons in the human brain are connected together. They reckonedthat it would be very interesting to build such a machine whichcontained as many processors are there are neurons in the humanbrain. Hideously expensive, of course, and the resulting computerwould be enormous. The idea appealed to Wye and Graham, however,and so they were given the go-ahead, and half a billion pounds,to give it a try. The scientists, in short, were behaving like a group of childrenloose in a toy shop, and were already suggesting that 'Sol,'Deborah and Graham get in touch with some of their colleaguesfrom overseas and try to convince them to come and help out - andstart work on their own long-wished-for projects. By the end of the meeting, Deborah had a list of nearly threehundred names and telephone numbers - and she had the 59thFlapper spend the remainder of his day getting each of thosepeople on the telephone so that their colleagues in the UK couldexplain the British policy on research and, if possible, convincethem to immigrate. Wye overheard part of one of the earliest of these 'phone calls,"Come on over, Dmitri. You know that connectionist machine we'vebeen talking about? That's right - the Multivac. Well, we'reactually going to build it - and I want your help. Money? Hell,no - no problems with money, we've been given half a billionpounds to start us off. Yes, you heard me right: half a billion.Five by ten to the eight pounds sterling. We can do it, man! Wecan actually fucking do it!" Before that first meeting ended, the Dictator had a word withSharon Kelly about her superconduction-led levitation concept.She soon calmed his minor fears regarding possible quenchingeffects and the reliability of the cooling system. "Not really a problem, Absolaam," she said, "A small-scaleliquid-nitrogen cooling system is fairly straightforward tobuild, and boil-off can be reduced using a fair vacuum forinsulation." "'Boil off'?" enquired Wye. "That's where the liquid nitrogen heats up and becomes gaseousagain," Kelly explained, "Hold on a second and I'll show you."She made a quick 'phone call to her lab. "The real problem is going to be in developing a reliabletechnique for growing or manufacturing superconductors of asuitable thickness." "You can grow superconductors?" Graham said in surprise, havingoverheard Kelly's words. "Sure, just not very reliably. Sometimes, we can grow asuperconducting crystal," her brow furrowed in annoyance, "It'sjust that we haven't managed to get a large one yet. Not high-temperature, anyway..." For the next hour, the four - the conversation was soon expandedby Deborah's joining them - talked over the problems Kelly faced.Then, the Flapper announced the arrival of somebody from Sharon'slab. He brought in a flask, hand-labelled 'N2,' and a small case.When the case was opened, they could see padding which protectedthe fragile disc of black ceramic that was the superconductor. "This is a chunk of ibbcoo," began Sharon. At the puzzled looks,she laughed, then explained, "Sorry - we call it that because ofits chemical formula: why, bee-ay two, see-you three, oh seven."When their faces still looked quizzical, she went on, "That's 'Y'for 'yttrium,' 'bee-ay' for 'barium,' 'see-you' for 'copper' and'O' for 'oxygen.' "So YBa2Cu3O7 means that each molecule contains one atom ofyttrium, two atoms of barium, three of copper and seven ofoxygen," her eyes took on an amused glint as she said, "Actually,that should be 'O seven-minus-X' because there aren't exactlyseven oxygen atoms in each molecu..." Sharon Kelly burst outlaughing when she saw their expressions of dismay, "It's okay -you don't really need to know all that - we just call it ibbcoofor short," and the other three nodded in relief. "In any case," Sharon went on, "I'm using this ibbcoo becauseit's a high-temperature superconductor - it superconducts up toaround ninety degrees. That's Kelvin," she added, "Incentrigrade, that's roughly one hundred and eighty-seven degreesbelow zero. "That means that liquid nitrogen - which has a temperature ofseventy Kelvin - can be easily used to cool it down tosuperconducting temperatures. Do you have a cup or something?"she asked Graham. Graham offered her a delicate china cup, but Sharon shook herhead, saying, "No - something more like...ah, this will do," shepicked up a polystyrene cup from the table, "There're a couple ofdrops of coffee still in it, but what the hell." Sharon set the vacuum flask on the cabinet table beside the discof ibbcoo, which she had placed on a piece of paper. Then, Sharonquickly - but, nonetheless, carefully - unscrewed its lid.Immediately, white plumes of cold gas started to appear aroundthe top of the unsealed flask as the nitrogen visibly boiled offinto the surrounding air. She took the polystyrene cup and placed it on the table, thenlifted the flask and started to pour the liquefied nitrogen intoit. Her first attempt was not too successful - she accidentallyknocked the cup over, and the nitrogen spilled over the table. It left no stain, however, and no residue - it boiled off soquickly after being spilled that Wye wasn't even sure that he'dseen the liquid flowing over the table. Hesitantly, he reachedand touched the table top. Aside from its being cold - very cold- to the immediate touch, he couldn't detect any trace of thespilt nitrogen. "Careful," Sharon said, "You don't want this stuff to get ontoyour skin. Oh," she added, almost as an afterthought, "And don'ttouch the ibbcoo either - it's a strong carcinogen." The Dictatordrew his hand back, sharply. Sharon's second attempt was a little better. Before replacingthe cup, she had dipped it slightly into the flask to improve itsstability by weighting it with a splash of liquid nitrogen. Oncethe cup was about two thirds full, she put the flask down andproceeded to pour the liquid nitrogen in the cup over the ceramicdisc. The procedure was repeated a couple more times, then she glancedat the lab assistant who had brought the items from herlaboratory. Immediately, he handed her a small metallic object -no more than a centimetre across, "The magnet," she explained,searching her pockets and finding a pair of plastic tweezers togrip it. Sharon then moved the magnet to just over the centre of theceramic disc before releasing it with the tweezers. It hesitateda bare moment, then rolled away. Once she had moved the magnetout of the way, Sharon re-filled the cup twice more, pouring morenitrogen over the superconductor until it lay in a shallow poolof nitrogen, which surrounded it with a faint haze of white mistas it boiled off. Taking the magnet once more in the tweezers, she replaced it inthe centre of the disc. This time, it stayed there, suspended inspace about half a centimetre above the ceramic. Her smiling labassistant took a piece of paper and inserted it in between theceramic and the magnet, to show that there was nothing connectingthe two. Neither was disturbed, though the magnet did wobble alittle in the breeze cast up by the movement of the paper. "And that," said Sharon, "Is practical levitation. Or will be,"she corrected herself, "If it can be done on a large enoughscale." "Why does it just...float there?" asked Graham. Though he'dheard of this effect before, this was the first time he'dactually seen it with his own eyes, and he was frankly astounded. "It's a property of superconductors," Sharon explained, "That amagnetic field can't pass through them - it's forced to...well,'move away,' to put it loosely. When a magnetic field touches asuperconductor, the superconductor itself produces an opposedmagnetic field, and the practical result is that the magnet issuspended above the superconductor, as you can see," sheconcluded. "If it generates a magnetic field," said Wye, slowly, "Thenthere has to be an electrical current as well, doesn't there?" For a change, it was Sharon's turn to grin, "Yes - you'rethinking of free power, aren't you?" she asked. At Wye's nod, sheanswered, "The problem is that the current on the surface of thesuperconductor is far too distributed to tap into it." Sharon broke off in thought, then mumbled to herself, "But if wewere to..." The rest of her words were too low for the Dictatorto hear, but he heard the word "angstrom," then noticed that sheshook her head in dismissal when she finished.

*****

Dmitri, the artificial intelligence researcher interested inbuilding a massive neural network, became a British citizen twodays later, and quickly contacted even more of his colleagues totell them the good news. Within the week he and his fellow immigrant scientists hadensured that the finest twenty thousand scientific brains on theplanet were working in Britain. The salaries of one hundred thousand pounds sterling per annumwhich Wye and Deborah decided on were not even a factor in theirdecisions - since the immigration wave had been in the countryfor over a week before salary was mentioned. What those scientists came for was the freedom - and theresources - to research the questions that they felt wereimportant.

Chapter Eight

"When you're a god, you don't have to have reasons." --Terry Pratchett

All in the world of science was not a bed of roses, of course -there were some restrictions on the research which was allowed. Throughout their initial meeting of minds with the country's topscientists, the Dictator and the Greenes had kept a second groupwaiting. Four hours later - when the scientific head-to-head wasover, and the scientists themselves had departed - the threeinvited that second group in to see them. The second group consisted entirely of philosophers. Morespecifically, it consisted of those philosophers who concernedthemselves with the field of ethics. The second meeting itself continued for eight hours straight. Itwould have continued indefinitely, as meetings of purist thinkersare bound to do, with no resolution, had the Dictator not steppedin to stem the flow and demand some basic guidelines. What, Wye wanted to know, did the majority of the group actuallyagree to be the basis of a sound ethical system. To his astonishment - and to the amazement of Deborah - thisgroup of ethicists managed to state several relatively-simpleguidelines, which - despite their claims of agreement - they thenproceeded to argue about as vehemently as before. To give you some idea: the first was that anything which doesunnecessary harm to a living organism is morally unjustifiable.The word "unnecessary" there was the subject of much debate,which we need not go into here or we'll be continuingindefinitely ourselves. The basic bone of contention, however, was whether a short-termharm in the service of a long-term benefit constituted an"unnecessary" harm and, thus, was ethically unsupportable, ornot. To take an example. If a small child reaches toward a flame, issmacking its hand an ethically supportable action? Thephilosophers were much divided. One group claimed that such a smack - since it was inflicted byanother individual - was damaging to both the smacker and thechild, since it implied that violence was a valid solution to aproblem, equal or greater in value to reasoned argument. Another group claimed that the smack was justifiable since theminor harm it imposed was negligible compared to the potentiallyfar greater damage which the naked flame could cause the child. The first group then retorted that the smack need notnecessarily be associated with the flame in the child'smind...and so the arguments went round and round. Wye, despairing of the philosophers, eventually formulatedguidelines for his own use in deciding the permissibility orotherwise of research projects. Firstly, that no live humanbeings were to be experimented upon without their explicitagreement, which could not be given unless they thoroughlyunderstood the implications and possible dangers of the researchwhich they were assisting in. Wye's second guideline was that no genetically-altered organismcould be released into the wild unless it could be proven thatits benefits would greatly outweigh potential dangers. It was the second guideline which caused him the most trouble,since deciding on the basis of vague perceptions of "potentialharm" and "potential benefit" was such a troublesome area thatthe guideline was virtually no use at all in practice. Wye's only firm commitment to himself was that he would make noguidelines and no rules concerning experiments involving animals,beyond a statement that laboratory animals should suffer nodistress or pain beyond that which was absolutely necessary forthe experiment. When he stated this commitment, both Graham and several of thephilosophers looked appalled at the second half of Wye'sstatement, while Deborah merely nodded that she agreed with theDictator, on this point at least. "But, darling," pleaded Graham when he was alone with his wifelater in the evening, "Surely you can see that experimenting onanimals is wrong. It's just plain nasty. And, besides, there's noneed for it," he added. "Why do you think that?" Deborah replied, quizzically, talkingaround the toothbrush, and incidentally spraying small flecks oftoothpaste onto the bathroom mirror. "Well," he went on, "There's no comparison between animals andhumans. You know that. Just because a drug works fine on animalsdoesn't mean that humans won't get side-effects from it." "True, true," she agreed. Deborah spat - not at all 'daintily' -the toothpaste into the sink then ran a little water as sheswilled to remove the toothpaste from her mouth. After spittingagain, she turned to her husband. "Sort of," she went on, "Look - I'm no biologist, you knowthat," her husband started to nod, but quickly caught himself -that wasn't the sort of question you were supposed to agree withyour wife about, after all. "If I recall correctly, though, thereare lots of animals which are similar enough to humans for anymajor side-effects to show up. Guinea pigs, for example," sheadded, "Have an immune system which works in almost exactly thesame way as ours." Deborah paused, before adding, hesitantly, "At least I thinkit's guinea pigs... "In any case, where would medicine be without animalexperiments?" It was a rhetorical question, "How many dogs diedbefore penicillin was developed?" Graham interrupted, "Hold on - penicillin was found byaccident." "Initially, yes - but that one piece of serendipity, that one'lucky accident' would have been useless without the experimentswhich were needed to get from a piece of mould contaminating adish to a fully-fledged antibiotic. "Experiments," she said, deliberately, "Conducted on animals." "Well, yes, but..." Graham began. "'But'?" his wife exploded, "'But'? How many lives - human lives- have antibiotics saved? If animal testing had been banned backthen, how many people would have died for the lack of them?" "I was going to say," Graham broke in, "But, these days we can -or, rather, the biologists can - do their tests on computersimulations of animals, or on tissue samples grown in the lab." "In some cases, that's true," his wife agreed, "But. Well, letme ask you this - how can you build a simulation complex enoughto test for something that you don't even know exists?" "Huh?" "Well, suppose you're trying to find a cure for some type ofcancer. Lung cancer, say. If you're not sure of what causes it,how can you build a simulation of it?" Graham paused for almost a minute in thought. Deborah went on, "The simple answer is that you can't. If youknow enough about the disease to be able to simulate it in enoughdetail to study it through the simulation then you don't need tostudy the simulation because you have to already have your answerbefore you can write the simulation. "In short," she paused to take a breath, "You can use thesimulations to teach what is already known, but not - in general- for research." "But what about tissue cultures?" asked Graham, sensing that hisarguments were losing ground, but sure that this last wouldsettle the matter. Deborah smiled, sweetly, "Graham," she asked, "How many cureswere found for AIDS?" "Huh? None that I know of. Why?" "I asked because there have been half a dozen 'cures' found.That I know of," Deborah added, to her husband's expression ofdisbelief, "The problem is," she went on, "That the cures whichworked in the test-tube didn't work on the animals. Or on thosehumans who were desperate enough to try them." "What are you saying, Deborah?" asked Graham, though he knewwhat she meant by this line of attack on his argument. "I mean, dear, that experiments done on tissue cultures can beused to replace some experiments on animals. But only in theearly stages. There's still no substitute, in the final analysis,for testing on live animals. And, in my opinion," she added,"There probably never will be. "I'll agree that it's unfortunate, and that animal testingshould only be done when necessary. I'll also agree that pain anddiscomfort for the animals should be as little as possible. "But I'm afraid that I can't agree that animal testing is alwaysA Bad Thing. I can't even agree that it's a Bad Thing most of thetime. "Frankly, my dear," she smiled at the words, "I'd be happy tosacrifice a million - a billion - animals if it results in a curefor AIDS. Even if that cure saves only a single human life. Andtry to get it into perspective - after all, the number of labanimals isn't exactly enormous. One lab animal dies each year forevery fifteen people in the country. "I just think that humans are more important, on balance, thanany other type of animal. I think that, admittedly, because I ama human - if I were a rabbit I might think that rabbits were themost important animal. But I'm not a rabbit, so I'll go forsaving the human race above all else." Deborah, out of breath after her talking marathon, grinnedsheepishly then said, "Sorry, dear - I didn't mean to make aspeech. It's just that the whole vivisection thing bugs me, theway it plays on peoples emotions and doesn't give the fullpicture. "When did you last see an anti-vivisection poster that had a raton it? After all, four out of every five lab animals are mice orrats - but you just don't see them on the posters. It's allmonkeys, rabbits, guinea pigs, dogs, cats and chimps. "Why? Because rats aren't as cute as likkle bunny wabbits,that's why! "Oops - sorry. I started another speech then as well." "Never mind, dear," said her husband, throwing back the sheets,"Come to bed now." As his wife joined him, Graham asked, deadpan,"What were you saying about if you were a rabbit?" Their gigglingwent on for only a short time before being replaced by moreserious things.

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